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Faith. Freedom. Beautiful concepts both, but far less welcome on the Grid these days, and mostly pointless. He should know. He’s derezzed plenty of programs drunk on both.
His face is not his face. Clu saw to that well enough. His face is a mask, both with and without his helmet. He hides behind dark eyes and lank hair. Not even Flynn would recognize him now.
It’s useful. It lets him go places he shouldn’t.
All societies have an underbelly. Even Clu’s order makes allowances for that. He buys a couple of hits of disruptive code, loads them, and then enters the club feeling euphoric and empty.
This place is nothing like End of Line. It’s sparse and dark, lit up in ember orange like Rinzler himself. He punches his preferences into a console, slams his hand down on the reader, and loads the metadata flags so that they’re visible.
It’s better than talking.
He flinches when a green-lit program grabs his arm and reads him. He didn’t specify a gender, but it’s unusual for a masculine-presenting program to approach him so quickly.
The stranger whistles low and shakes his head. “You serious, or is this an error?”
Rinzler doesn’t even glance at the data on display. “No errors.”
“Risk-Aware or unsafe?”
“Either. Both. You’re an ISO.”
“Is that a problem?”
“No.”
“Okay, then.” The ISO flips his wrist to reveal his own metadata flags. “Acceptable?”
Rinzler considers. Nods.
“Awesome. I always wanted to make a souped-up Basic my bitch for a night. Name’s Gibson. You?”
Rinzler shakes his head. “I’m nothing.”